“I didn’t spend that money for nothing” he said with a chuckle on Thursday.

The 90-year-old founder and owner of the franchise didn’t make any “playoffs or pink slips” ultimatums as he did before the 1999 season which ended with the Titans in the Super Bowl.

But eight months after electing to keep coach Mike Munchak and fire senior executive vice president Mike Reinfeldt in the wake of a 6-10 season and after an offseason in which the Titans revamped their coaching staff and spent more than $100 million on free agents Adams made it clear he expects significant improvement this fall.

He will be watching closely when his team opens the season Sunday against the Steelers.

“We have the talent in there and now we have to put it to work” Adams said during a phone conversation with The Tennessean. “I think we’re going to have a good team and I’ll be real unhappy if we don’t. We put out a lot of money to get what we got and I think we have some people who can get us in the championship.”

The Titans haven’t been to the playoffs since 2008 and haven’t won a playoff game since 2003.

“If we don’t make the playoffs then we’re sitting (still)” Adams said. “We have some great talent we brought in and we paid a lot of money to get them in there. I am banking on us getting it done this year.”

There are 20 new players on the 53-man roster. The 38 percent turnover from last year is the franchise’s highest such rate of the Titans era (since 1999).